Welcome to Close Call Sports. CCS objectively tracks and analyzes close and controversial calls in sport, with great regard for the rules and spirit of the game. Developed from The Left Field Corner: MLB Umpire Ejection Fantasy League (UEFL), whose purpose is to objectively track and analyze umpire ejections, video instant replay reviews and their corresponding calls, with great regard for the rules and spirit of the game.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Welcome to the 2012 UEFL Appeals Board election. As per Rule 6-4-a, the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League has established an Appeals Board that shall routinely rule on issues of Quality of Correctness. Comprised of three rotating voting members and a roster of five at-large volunteers, a pre-season nomination and election process has been established to select this season's Board.

Listed in random order, the following 12 persons have been nominated for the 2012 UEFL Appeals Board and your votes shall decide our inaugural Appeals Board roster. With five at-large vacancies, you may vote for as many or as few candidates as you wish. Short-form statements follow while unabridged candidate statements are available on the UEFL Portal's Appeals Board page; Candidates are additionally free to campaign as a reply to this post, if so desired. Voting closes Friday, March 30 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time; the poll is located beneath all candidate statements:

Friday, March 23, 2012

Joe Torre is back at MLB as Baseball Operations Executive Vice President, the position he held throughout 2011 until resigning January 4 in order to pursue ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, which Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig had mandated be sold by April 30, 2012.

Attribution: Wikimedia

After Torre's investment group dropped out of the bidding process for the iconic franchise, Selig offered Torre his old job back: As Executive Vice President, Baseball Operations, Torre oversaw on-field activities, including MLB operations, on-field discipline and umpiring. Torre will once again return to the chief disciplinarian role, serving as primary liason to GMs and field managers throughout the league.

Prior to accepting the position in advance of the 2011 season, Torre had retired as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers after spending the bulk of his managerial career in New York with the Yankees. Prior to coaching, Torre was a player.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The 2012 NFL off-season is in full swing after a flurry of free agent signings of the game's biggest names, such as Mario Williams, Randy Moss, and others changed their teams last week. This week certainly had its fair share of news. Yesterday saw the legend of Tim Tebow traded from the Broncos to the Jets (after Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos the day before) and also the Saints received one of the most severe punishments in the history of professional sports for its bounty (Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 season as just part of it). Although these were the headline catching news, what cannot be missed was an important meeting regarding the upcoming NFL season. The Competition Committee for the National Football League met yesterday via conference call and proposed several rule changes, along with some made by the teams. These proposed rule changes were announced by the committee's chairman Rich McKay, the president of the Atlanta Falcons. Here is a look at the proposed rule changes:

1) Instant Replay Decisions Made by Booth
Proposed by the Buffalo Bills, this proposal would move authority from the referee to the booth official to make decisions on reviews for instant replay. The decision as to overturn or uphold an on-field call would no longer be made on the field, similar to college football. A tenant of the proposal could also end the challenge system, meaning that not only all reviews would be decided by the booth, but initiated by them too. Buffalo's reasoning for this proposal is that they believe it would speed up the instant replay process.

While it is conceivable that replay review decisions made by the booth could reduce the time it takes for a review to take place, it could be an insignificant amount and also introduce other issues. Yes, time would be saved firing up the replay booth and having the referee go to the booth, but the time cut is largely insignificant. This especially holds true if the challenge system is abolished and all replays are initiated by the booth. There would be no limit on such reviews, likely seeing an increase, and easily taking up any time otherwise saved.